The Master’s Plan

For more and more professions, a bachelor’s degree is just the beginning. “To get better jobs and to better position yourself in industry today, it’s almost like master’s degrees are required,” says Provost Russell Pinizzotto. The number of master’s degrees awarded has doubled in the US over the past three decades, according to the Council of Graduate Schools, which also projects that between 2010 and 2020, 2.6 million jobs will require an advanced degree—900,000 of those calling for a master’s degree.

Wentworth’s first graduate program, the Master of Architecture, began in fall 2009. It was followed by master’s programs in construction management in 2010 and facility management this fall. “Wentworth has always moved along with the times to offer the education required for students to have really good careers, and not just have really good jobs,” says Pinizzotto. “And if you look around, it’s clear that people with master’s degrees are definitely ahead of the game when it comes to career development and advancement.”

Here’s a look at how students and alumni from Wentworth’s new programs are using their education to move forward. —DAN MORRELL

STEPHANIE ROGOWSKI, BSA ’09, MARC ’10 When Stephanie Rogowski is working on fast-moving projects and juggling opportunities as an architectural designer at New Haven’s Pickard Chilton, she’s reminded of what she loved so much about the master’s in architecture program at Wentworth. “You go to Wentworth and the students are just driven as a whole,” says Rogowski. “I have a unique situation where my place of employment has that same atmosphere and that same energy.”

At Wentworth, that atmosphere was the result of intimate class sizes, studio spaces, and working professors. “I think they have a work ethic that a lot of schools just don’t have,” says Rogowski. “The studio space was really enticing to see—students working around the clock and all of them with smiles on their faces.”

Chuckling, Rogowski recalls a quintessential experience: In the final weeks before thesis projects were due, students would take turns cooking for the rest of the group. “People were maximizing their efficiency and their eating schedules!” Rogowski says. “When you get a bunch of people together who all enjoy what they do, you succeed, you jump on the bandwagon, and you’re in it. It’s a support network.”